


Anchoring the Action

by Domimagetrix



Series: Gentili e Sculacciati [10]
Category: Runescape (Video Games)
Genre: Adult Language, Alcohol, Drunkenness, Mobster AU, Multi, One (1) lewd Pict-made art, Organized Crime, Timelines, Very Vague NSFW Joke, Wahisietel tries to explain multiverse stuff to a drunken con woman, that goes about as well as expected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-19
Updated: 2018-09-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 06:38:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16035023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Domimagetrix/pseuds/Domimagetrix
Summary: Wise-Tail has begun formulating a tentative plan to reverse the Shift before things reach critical severity on several-timelines-impacted Earth. He invites Razwan to his apartment, sharing both ideas and alcohol (surprisingly, given the last visit) and shares a bit of the memory he's managed to reclaim.





	Anchoring the Action

An Rellghan existed for me as one-third temptation and two-thirds restricted area. Even had I not been tethered as I was to other powers, with some unofficial and official districts came certain… understandings.

What few shop windows I’d seen along the borders bore no direct admonishments against ingress, but it didn’t matter. Most of the jazz and swing musicians Sliske hired, along with some of the staff - including me - tended to socialize separately from patrons or the rest of the staff during our breaks. We shared our collective wisdom and accumulated hearsay with each other; there were places you simply Did Not Go, and a saxophonist I’d been sweet on during his two-week stay at the casino had impressed upon us that the Valkyries’ territory was one of them.

His was the only word on it, but caution had ever been a friend to longevity. We took each contribution to the community warning pot as sacrosanct. Sometimes a single warning was all you got, and there were dangers enough for those of us with too much color in our skin to render each warning precious.

I’d overheard enough scuttlebutt among the Gray Ring’s staff to know “the Boss” had some interest in An Rellghan, although the details of it were still as infuriatingly obscure as Sliske’s own motives. Both he and Zamorak wanted me to steer clear of V’s mercenary forces.

Unfortunately, with each visit to Wise’s apartment on the border of their territory, the efficacy of their warnings waned.

Stopping parallel in front of the building, I watched a quartet of blond, muscular women emerge from the grocer’s next to it. All four were dressed similarly, not a uniform, but the pants and shirts bespoke some shared decision-making. Paper sacks bunched in toned arms, and my eyes fastened onto the latter like organs possessed.

Any of them could comfortably carry me as easily as they carried their produce. Probably pin me, too, with minimal effort...

The rusted Ford jerked forward and I slammed my foot on the brake, grudgingly returning my focus to the task of parking. Cutting the engine, I ignored the obvious metaphor for my own state of affairs and sternly told my imagination to find something else to amuse itself.

With difficulty.

One of the women - the shortest and trailing behind the others - turned, made no secret of sizing up what little could be seen of me behind the wheel, and winked at me.

With a _great deal_ of difficulty.

They got into their car and merged into traffic. I left my own rusted monstrosity, wincing at the groan of stressed metal as the door swung shut, and patted my coat pocket for the little bottle of rum I’d brought along. Though Wise-Tail kept alcohol of his own, it seemed presumptuous to assume he’d be as willing to share after the last visit. My companion at the time hadn’t been kind to his supply.

I stood flush against the door as several cars passed. Moving around to the back once it was safe, I realized the abused Ford could stand a wash. Someone had interpreted the coating of dirt atop the black paint as a medium of self-expression. Whomever they were, they were thin of finger, affording their work neat, narrow lines. I peered at the anonymous artist’s leavings.

They - no, _he_ \- had gone out of his way to draw veins. And top it with… an egg?

I snorted indelicately and rubbed the vulgar graffito into a meaningless swirl of road dirt with the sleeve of my coat. _You’re a fucking class act, Pict._

The trip to Wise’s door was markedly easier than the last. Dusting vehicle dirt from my backside, I pressed the buzzer and waited.

No irritated monologue accompanied the shuffling footsteps to the door. The knob turned, and the door swung inward to reveal an impressive amount of graying facial hair attached to a man.

Wise peered down at me, off to either side as though disbelieving I’d arrived alone, then stepped aside with a curt hand sweep toward the interior of his apartment. I walked past the gesturing hand into the little living room, turning to see Wise’s slippered foot scoot leaf clutter I’d brought with me back outside before he shut the door.

A ghost of irritation pinched his features and smoothed away just as quickly. He looked back at me. “Pict?”

“Alive.” I didn’t wait for an invitation and kicked off my shoes, padding to a chair on one side of the coffee table and curling up in it. He moved to the couch on the other side. “I asked him the questions you gave me.”

Something that smelled like leather but felt closer to velvet gave generously under my ass. “No spots. No twists where he looks at things.” I paused, waiting for him to sit before continuing. “I don’t know if he remembers being here. All he said was, ‘didn’t get fucked, nothing to remember,’ and gets his feathers in a ruffle if I keep asking.”

Two metallic tings resonated from within a modest wooden clock behind me and announced the hour. Wise folded his fingers together, sitting forward and shifting his elbows on his knees until his rolled-up sleeves were no longer twisted. He unlaced those same fingers long enough to nudge his glasses up his nose, refolded them between his knees, and sighed. “How much do you know about him?”

I shrugged. “World Guardian, like me.” _Well, perhaps not like me._ “Smokes, drinks, likes a good time.” _Maybe a little bit like me._ “Works under Sliske.” I waggled my eyebrows.

He snorted. “He works entirely for Sliske. You don’t.”

My fingers found the edge of a sleeve. I let a little warning trickle into my voice. “I work for Sliske.”

“You work for _Il Diavolo.”_

I redoubled the warning tone. “Don’t.”

He rolled his eyes at me. Either he didn’t understand the warning or he knew he could take me if I tried anything.

He wasn’t stupid.

Still, I couldn’t let him do what he was trying to do. “This isn’t a healthy conversation, Wise.”

His fingers unlaced again and he waved a dismissive hand, the oyster shell face of his watch glinting in what little lamplight escaped the fringed shade to his right. “One - it’s too late, I already know. Already said it. The conversation’s as damning begun as it will be finished. Two - you’re only a hair’s breadth above that little tequila worm you brought here last time in terms of giving health advice. Leave dispensing that shit to the professionals, even if they are retired.”

I squinted at him. “I’ve only ever seen him drink whiskey when he’s not-”

_“Razwan.”_

I shrank into a surly little ball in the chair. “Fine.”

He nudged his glasses up the bridge of his nose again, then reached beneath the couch and withdrew a whiskey bottle. I wondered if it was a replacement or a miraculous survivor of Pict’s rampage through his supply as he twisted off the top and took a generous swig, then set it down on the coffee table between us. “Might surprise you to know I didn’t call you over here to wring you out about Sliske.”

He looked mildly pained as he went on. “You actually need him, much as I hate it. Your relationship is part of why you survive your timeline at all.”

“My _what?”_ I scowled. “I don’t have a _relationship_ with him except the working one. He flirts.”

Wise’s gaze searched mine. “Not yet, then. But you will.”

“You make a shitty fortune teller.” I curled my thumbs and index fingers into circles and held them near my ears. “No earrings, no crystal ball.” I crossed my arms over myself. “And Sliske is with Pict. Not getting involved in that.”

“Sliske isn’t from any one timeline. He’s melded from all of the timelines represented here, same as many of us are. His memories, every version of events and how they shaped him.” Wise prodded the bottle toward me. “It’s a damned horror show trying to separate them all, but I think I remember enough about the three of you to help when the time comes. You’re going to need Sliske. And Nomad. Nomad in particular is going to be critical to two of you”

I reached for the bottle and took my own swallow, placing it back on the table. “Who’s Nomad? And three of what?”

Wise’s index fingers left the braid and he pressed them together, pointing them at me steeple-in-church style. “Nomad. ‘The Wanderer.’ Whatever. And I’m referring to the three of you. Pict, yourself, and Finley.”

The last name danced with the idea of familiarity but refused to commit. “Finley...”

Familiarity bridged the gap. Sliske’s warning over the phone when I was here last. Wise-Tail’s irritable chastising from behind his door until he’d opened it and realized I wasn’t whomever he’d been yelling at.

_“Christing fuck, Finley, I told you to call me from the goddamned bar-”_

_“And avoid Finley Bannbreker at all costs.”_

I knew we were alone. Still, I scanned the apartment on either side of me, eyes settling on the brass and black lacquer of his phone, the slightly ragged-looking carpet of the hallway to the back, to mantles where books, a card bearing a number of military insignia, and jars with mystery items floating inside sat like artefacts which had yet to gather a suitable coating of dust. To my right, simple, off-white curtains muted sunlight that’d already been dulled by humidity. Something smelled like freshly-cut wood, but I saw neither shavings on the floor nor woodworking equipment around us.

His voice interrupted my inventory. “I take it you’re familiar with her.”

I looked back at Wise. As he’d said, the conversation was already damning. “Never met her.”

Hazel eyes, too astute, took my measure. “Maybe you haven’t. She’s going to be critical to making sure we all get home, likewise you and Pict.”

“And Sliske?”

Reluctance announced itself in his face. “Yes. But convincing him it needs to be done is going to be difficult.”

I wrapped my arms around a bent leg, wiggling my toes and reminding myself to do something about the uncomfortable shoes I’d worn here. Like throwing them away. “So why doesn’t he want to go back to ‘Gielinor?’” Something else struck me. “Why would I want to go there, for that matter? What’s in it for me?”

Wise rubbed his face, a rumbling sound issuing from behind his hands before those hands dropped back to hang between his knees. “Because this isn’t going to last. The mirroring effect is going to hit a critical point that Earth can’t handle. There’s also something on Gielinor - a kind of energy source - that’s essential to your survival. To all the World Guardians in differing ways.

“The impacted timelines that’ve been force-compressed here aren’t stable. You three are divergent from most of the other timelines, but you’re also divergent from each other. It’s a mess. You all need to go where you belong, and those of us who exist as aggregates from multiple timelines are suffering the effects of discontinuity. None of us are native to Earth.”

I blinked at him. “In English, please? You Mahjarrat are the…” I struggled for the term, “...the aliens. I’m pretty sure I’m from Earth. Not this country, but-”

Wahisietel spoke.

_“Parlez un petit peu de français, vrai?”_

With his words came a great mass of half-remembered sounds and images breaking free from their confinement.

Baked sand. Blood, some fresh and some not. Screaming. Well-dressed men and women in stadium stands above, worked into an animalistic bloodthirst their nobility restricted them from appeasing directly. A whip-thin man, one gesturing with his free hand and holding a staff-

_-air staff-_

-with his other. Air tensing, pausing, still present but refusing my attempts to draw it in, to breathe-

_-Wenu it was Wenu and Khazard refused him his honorable death-_

-and the man speaking. “Viennas, partet taeusa.” _Come, little killer._

_Something. What he said was almost right. Should be, “parlaissas un partet pa’ de… something._

I sat straighter in the chair, inhaling deeply, hoping both to prolong the smell that existed nowhere save my mind and to purge it. “I’ve heard that somewhere. What is it?”

He smiled just a little then, a professorial acknowledgment of a right answer. “French. Not good French, but it sounded a little familiar, didn’t it?”

“It wasn’t quite right.” I sat up, crossing my legs. “The word-ends were wrong. But I don’t speak French.”

Wise nodded. “Suffixes. You don’t speak French, that’s true, but you do speak something that bears striking resemblance to it. Kirjanu, a Gielinorian language. You learned some of it during your youth.” Distaste crossed his features.

I inhaled to speak but he raised a finger to quiet me. “There’s more.” He dropped the finger, looked down to somewhere between his knees, then up at me again. “I’ll do my best with this, but I didn’t learn more than ten or so phrases. _Aya parsi sohbat mikonid?”_

_“Khodaye man! Chetor?”_ His pronunciation left something to be desired, but it wasn’t the worst I’d ever heard. My truest, closest connection to the world via words came in Wahisietel’s voice, and I fought an upsurge of feeling that would end in tears if given too much focus.

My hands went to the armrests and curled around their fronts. “How do you know so many?”

Another hand-wave. “Barring a handful of useful words, I don’t. But Persian and the language you grew up with on Gielinor are very similar.” Wise pointed at me. “And you speak English entirely too well for someone who started learning it as late in life as you did.”

I shrugged, the surreal feeling pairing with disquiet. “It was easy.”

“The hell it was.” He snorted. “English is one of the most difficult Earth languages to learn if you don’t start very young. Its counterpart is spoken throughout Asgarnia, Misthalin, and Kandarin. You had an advantage piggybacking off of Gielinor’s version. You learned that counterpart with me, in fact.”

“With you?”

He nodded. “I was your tutor earlier in your childhood, before you started… picking up Kirjanu.”

That expression again. “You helped me with the not-French? Kirjanu?”

“No.” Wise’s lips pressed together, bunching the moustache, but what might’ve earned laughter in another conversation was assimilated into his overall grimness. “Had the choice been mine, and had I known what was going to happen, you wouldn’t have learned it at all.”

“Why-”

He held up his hand. “Another time.” The hand went for the whiskey, found it, and tipped the bottle up as Wise took a swallow. “Your early life on Gielinor - and here, for that matter - aren’t what’s critical to what’s going on now. Nor to what I expect is _going_ to happen.”

My curiosity faltered. Something about my shrouded other past bothered him. I let it pass. “Then what is important? Why do I want to go back?”

Wise returned the bottle to the table. “Because all three of you have ties to Anima. The energy core of Gielinor.” He lifted his hand in a so-so-gesture. “Not in the same way, but no less critical for each of you. For you,” he pointed at me again, “it’s the reason your patchwork soul doesn’t come apart.”

_Religion again?_ The Wanderer had sleep-muttered something about souls, too, but it didn’t matter. “I don’t have one.”

He burst into laughter, the grimness dimming under the force of being caught off-guard. “In a manner of speaking, you’re right.” He paused, letting some of the mirth die down. “You have two. And spare change.”

_Beats what the Catholics near Tucker’s were trying to sell me, I guess._ “Two, huh?”

For the first time, he looked unsure of himself. “Or… you will. No, no, just the one now. The mirroring hasn’t progressed that far yet. It’s going to be altered, though, and without Anima it’s at risk of being destroyed.” He levelled his gaze at me. “You don’t believe me.”

I thought about it. “Don’t know if I do.”

Helping myself to a bit more whiskey, I met his gaze. Weighed it. Waited for that too-intense return stare signifying effort poured into a lie, for the shift in weight, for a press of fingers against each other. Some tell for his bluff or his bullshit.

Weighed. Waited.

Nothing. He looked every bit a man burdened with troubling information he’d rather not have, or wished he could do something about on his own.

_Truth._

Either he wasn’t lying or he didn’t know he was, but listening to Wise exercise his language skills had rattled something loose from the mess of incoherent memories in my head.

_Fuck it._ “And the others. Pict?”

The refusal found his face before he spoke. “Not my story to tell.”

I nodded. “Sliske told me to stay away from Finley. Why do you want us to work together? Why are you doing this instead of Sliske or _Il Vuoto_ or someone? Who is she?”

Something warm and tinctured with humor spread over his face. “A very dear friend, and one of the finest people I’ve ever known.”

“Then why would Sliske…” I stopped. The answer was clear. _Finest people._ I didn’t rub elbows with fine people, and little of that had to do with my height. I wasn’t done with why, however.

“..no. Why _you?_ Why isn’t someone else doing this? You’re not the only one who wants to go back.”

Wise finally broke eye contact and looked down at his hands. “Because, barring a handful of exceptions, I perform a similar role in most World Guardians’ lives.” He looked up again. “Advisor. Friend. Sometimes,” he gestured to the side of the couch where Pict had lain last time I was here, “more babysitter than anything, but the fact remains that I’m more likely than anyone to orient you three toward a common goal.”

It occurred to me to mention the gods, but the thought was extinguished as soon as it arose. Pict was Sliske’s in truth. I worked for Zamorak when it came right down to it. Given the warnings on multiple fronts, Finley was probably…

I felt cold. _Not him. If she’s for Saradomin I’ll kill her wherever she stands-_

Wise interrupted my brooding. “I’m still working on the details, but there’s a plan.”

I looked back up at him, no longer interested in watching my fingers fidget.

He took another pull of whiskey, then reached again beneath the couch. “Tentative. But, before I explain that, I’m going to try to explain what I think happened in the first place.”

Something hard slid across the carpet beneath him as I spoke. “Why me?”

Wise paused, as did the sound, and he looked back up. “Because I’m not going to be able to convince the other two by myself. You’re a bullshit artist, and it’s going to take some bullshit to get the other two on board.”

I squinted at him. “Blunt for a man who wants my help.”

He laughed, pulling a wooden contraption from beneath him and setting it on the table. “You’re a flimflammer with very little taste for flimflam, yourself. Figured I’d save us both time.”

_Should’ve chased down that blonde woman. I deserve better than this._

A lie. I didn’t, but I still regretted not taking the risk. Still, the thing was done and I was here. “Why not Finley? Your ‘fine person?’”

Wise went quiet, gnarled fingers resting against a thin metal rod holding what looked like a many-layered wooden pie over the base of his contraption. That same hand left the rod, reached for the bottle of whiskey, paused, then clenched in a fist as though reining something in. Helpless anger drew his brows in as he almost glared at the smoky liquid we’d halved in quantity since my arrival.

Fingertips found the metal support again and rested there as he spoke. “Some of the mirroring is an approximation rather than a perfect or near-perfect duplication of events for each of you.” He looked up at me again, and his voice held a note of pleading. “She’s buried under the weight of those differences.”

It was pain. Pain in his eyes, a ragged and beaten version of the pain he’d smothered imperfectly when he’d mentioned French. Frustration, too.

The plea was aimed at me. To understand, to let it be, to accept rather than prod the wound with more questions.

My face felt warm. I looked down at my hands and spoke softly. “I can bullshit, but I can’t work with one of Saradomin’s.”

Bellowed laughter startled me out of my withdrawal. As I looked up, he leaned back in the couch with one hand running over his beard as he shook. “Not… not a…”

Wise composed himself, slowly, and sat forward again. He seemed to speak for his own benefit rather than mine, fingertips burying themselves in his facial hair while his gaze took in both whiskey and wooden toy. “It must be a peril of sentience that the long lived and not will burn together in the fires of quotidian prejudices.”

The fingers stopped ruffling and his eyes flicked back up to me. “She isn’t one of Saradomin’s, but the three of you present an almighty fuck of a problem with your respective loyalties.”

I felt I’d missed something, some insight, but stayed quiet.

Wise drank again, then waved his hand loosely at the toy he’d withdrawn from beneath the couch. “Nevermind my philosophical navel-gazing. What do you see?”

Uncoiling and planting my feet on the floor, I sat forward.

Whatever it was intended to be, the quality of craftsmanship revealed itself in layers both literal and metaphorical. The base was a simple wooden rectangle with four thin, brass rods rising from each of its sides. The two to my right and left were topped with thick wooden discs, perhaps an inch deep, with wedges cut and affixed to a turning mechanism in the center.

On the left, both disc and wedge were formed solidly of the same kind of wood. On the right, the larger portion of the disc was comprised of several layers, graduating from a light blond to something stained nearly chocolate in color. Its wedge, however, was made of the same unremarkable wood as the right, save a very thin section on the bottom where even thinner layers mimicking the larger multilayered disc had been glued together with some bonding agent that left no dried beads along the edges. It looked like a fancy cake, but with all the filling types compressed to unsatisfying narrowness.

The two brass rods on my and Wise’s sides rose and joined at the center, holding some turning mechanism aloft. The two pie slices - solid and layered alike, sat within their respective disks but were supported on their outsides by the mechanism. Intuitively, I understood that the center revolved, allowing the two cut wedges to switch positions.

It was beautiful. I touched the brass support closest to me. “Did you make this?”

He nodded. “With some help from an old friend, yes.”

My eyes roved over the metal clamps - brackets? - holding the wedges to the center mechanism. “It’s nice. What’s it for?”

Wise made a gruffly amused sound. “Hopefully to help you visualize what I’m going to explain.”

Familiarity supplanted the disquiet from before. I still had my doubts about what he’d said, but what I felt now seemed less immediate and more as though it echoed from an old room. Sitting at a table, listening to him teach, was almost…

_“Images are integrated seamlessly into Pollnivnean and Kharidian. It’s different with Angalast languages. Unless you’re trying to be poetic, you must say the literal thing or someone from Lumbridge or Falador won’t understand what you mean. Not all your phrases make sense in other languages. You can’t tell a person that a mouse should eat them; you have to say, ‘you’re very cute!’ See?”_

_“But I wouldn’t tell someone they’re cute! That’s gross, Wahi.”_

_“Ahuhm. It so happens I’ve seen you following that other little girl around after class. Bringing her reedflowers, no less.”_

_“WAHISIETEL! You can’t tell. Promise you won’t tell?”_

_“Oh? Who are we calling cute, then?”_

_“Nkuku, this is a tutoring hour. Please… please go home.”_

...comforting.

I dipped into my jacket pocket and pulled out the rum, offering the little bottle to him. “A replacement.” Wise accepted it, giving the label a passing glance, then spun off the cap and took a sip.

He grimaced. “Too sweet.” He passed it back.

I took it back, taking my own sip. “Your loss.”

He aimed a look at me, nudging his glasses back up his nose and gesturing at my substandard offering. “Slow down. You’re going to be scrooched before I even get started.”

Muttering, I capped the rum.

Wise tapped the solid-colored wooden disk to my left. “Earth.”

I tapped the other side of the disk, smirking at him. “Thought some Italian said different?”

“Different _ly._ The Greeks beat him to it, and Galileo’s observations had to do with other celestial bodies, not Earth.” He pointed in a wide circle around the disc. “Just imagine this is our planet, only compressed for our convenience.”

_“Your_ convenience.”

He pinned me with another of those professorial expressions, this one stern. “I got enough sass the last time you were here.” He returned his attention to the model. “Here,” he pointed at the thin lines marking the edges of the pie wedge, “a portion of Earth, all of its timelines separated nice and neat.”

He pointed to the other disc’s wedge. “Here, a portion of Gielinor. Imagine that, when it’s set here in its native world, these thinner layers are spread out the way they are in the rest of the world.”

I watched as he pinched the central rod, then carefully turned the mechanism at its center, revolving it until the pie wedges had reversed position, each looking decidedly at odds with their new surroundings. “The Shift. What brought us here, and what has almost certainly brought a portion of Earth to Gielinor.”

“Why aren’t there thin layers in this piece?” I pointed at the blond wood now set in Gielinor’s disc. “Why did we get this compression?”

Wise grumbled and waved his hand at the whole works. “Because I don’t know if what happened here happened there. This is mostly guesswork, remember.” He scratched idly at his beard. “Could be it’s happened like that there. Or the Earth section is now part of still another world. Or gone.”

_“Gone?”_

“Not important.” He scooted forward. “I’m scratching theories and concepts I barely understand, here. This seems likely given a lot of physical laws have a balancing quality to them. Equal and opposite, angles of impact and return.”

Both whiskey and rum introduced themselves at the expense of my focus. “Okay. Okay, then. But why this? Why…” I hiccuped, “...why not just tell me what I need to do?”

Hazel eyes pinned me in place. “Because I believe a certain someone relevant to all three of you is going to be the pivot point that will get us home, and I need you to convince a few others to help me do what I’m planning to do when he finally shows himself.”

I squinted, trying to keep my eyes trained on him and losing the battle. “Who? Sliske?”

“No.” Wise sighed tiredly. “Shit.”

I sat back in the chair, suddenly too warm. “Might be… a little drunk.”

Wise sounded mildly irritated. “That might be for the best. This is heading into territory all three of you need to hear, anyway.”

I closed my eyes and heard him stand, then the world swung as a pair of arms lifted me out of the chair and around the table. A wooden thunk, punctuated with a pained grumble from the chest next to my ear, preceded the feel of being lowered onto the couch where Wise had sat mere moments ago.

A swirl of light and color greeted my attempt to open my eyes again, and I gave up the effort. A blanket covered me as I spoke. “Worlguardians. Sounds stupid. Like penny novel superheroes. Notta superhero.”

Wise’s voice faded gently into the background noise. He spoke as the clock above me dinged the hour. “Believe me, I know. Get some sleep. You'll be more helpful sober.”

The last thing I heard was slippered footsteps as Wise left me and went somewhere further inside the apartment.

A final thought accompanied me into unconsciousness.

_Wait, when the fuck did I agree to help him?_


End file.
